Triggered Spell Attack and Damage Type Table
The way this works is that all triggered damage has two properties: attack type and damage type (well, all damage really does, but this is beside the point). Attack type is used by armor classes and includes Hero, Siege, Piercing, Normal, Spells, etc. Damage type is not actually used for calculating damage but more for determining if and how the target will be damaged. There are three main classes of damage types: Physical, Magical, and Universal.
Some common Damage Types used in DotA are Normal (physical and reduces damage based upon armor) and Magic (magical and is unaffected by armor). Most damage types other than those two seem to be Magical, although there are some that are not, but Normal seems to be the only one that applies armor. Magic immune units cannot be damaged by abilities that use a magical damage type, but magical immunity makes no difference for the Spells damage type.
In short, for all practical purposes here, hero spell resistance will only be applied when the attack type is Spells. Armor will only be applied when the damage type is Normal.
Other important notes is that all damage done with Damage type Normal is considered physical, melee damage. This means that effects such as Centaur's Return and Lich's Frost Armor and items such as Blade Mail and Stout Shield will trigger off of this damage, even if the source of the damage is ranged.
This alphebetized list is provided as a reference to the damage reduction of each spell, along with some random notes about how the spells work.
All of this data was taken in 6.19 but should still hold true unless anything has been changed, and includes all of the heroes that deal damage directly through triggers. This list can help you counter or take advantage of certain abilities and help you with what to buy to help against some spells (For example, don't buy Aegis for spell damage reduction against Rupture). If you think I left something out, that some information is incorrect or requires clarification, or that a section is outdated, feel free to post it; I could've very easily missed something or made a mistake.
Acid Spray (Alchemist)
* Attack type Spells, Damage type Normal
Adaptive Strike (Morphling)
* Attack type Hero, Damage type Normal
* Adaptive Strike deals damage if Morphling's agility is greater than his strength, stun and knockback if his strength is greater than his agility, and both if they are equal.
Arcane Orb (Obsidian Destroyer)
* Attack type Hero, Damage type Magic
Backstab (Stealth Assassin)
* Attack type Hero, Damage type Normal
* Illusions play the graphic of Backstab, but deal no damage.
* Backstab will activate if the directions that the Stealth Assassin and his target are facing are within 105 degrees of each other.
Blink Strike (Chaos Knight, Phantom Assassin, Stealth Assassin)
* Attack type Normal, Damage type Normal
* Blink Strike deals the damage as stated, moves the caster to the position of the target, and tells the caster to attack the target. If the target is allied, there is a small pause added, the script deals no damage, and the caster is not issued an order.
Brain Sap (Bane Elemental)
* Attack type Hero, Damage type Magic
* Brain Sap heals Atropos for the full listed amount, even if the target had less HP than that amount.
Chaos Bolt (Chaos Knight)
* Attack type Spells, Damage type Magic
* Chaos Bolt deals a random amount of damage from 1 to 200 at all levels.
Counter Helix (Axe)
* Attack type Hero, Damage type Normal
* This passive deals full damage when triggered by illusions.
* AoE of 300
Culling Blade (Axe)
* If the target is at 300/450/625 HP or less, then Culling Blade deals 100000000 damage with Attack type Normal, Damage type Normal.
* Otherwise, its damage is by default Attack type Spells, Damage type Magic
Death Coil (Lord of Avernus)
* Self-damage has Attack type Hero, Damage type Magic
* Damage to enemies has Attack type Spells, Damage type Magic
Desolate (Spectre)
* Attack type Hero, Damage type Divine (Magical)
* Will activate if the attacked hero has no allies within 900 disance, including other heroes, creeps, summons, or illusions (but not towers).
Diabolic Edict (Tormented Soul)
* Attack type Spells, Damage type Normal
* This spell deals damage equal to 12.5 times the level of the spell to a random target within 500 of the caster ever quarter second.
Dispersion (Spectre)
* Attack type Hero, Damage type Magic
* Dispersion has a damage cap of Mercurial's max HP.
* The stun lasts 0.5 seconds on creeps, 0.01 seconds on heroes.
* AoE of 400.
Double Edge (Centaur Warchief)
* Attack Type Spells, Damage Type Fire
Elune's Arrow (Priestess of the Moon)
* Attack type Spells, Damage type Magic
Empowering Haste (Spirit Breaker)
* Attack type Hero, Damage type Normal
* This passive deals full damage when triggered by illusions and affects towers.
Enrage (Ursa Warrior)
* Attack type Hero, Damage type Normal
Fatal Bonds (Warlock)
* Attack type Spells, Damage type Magic
* This refers to damage dealt by Fatal Bonds due to damage received by linked units.
* Damage dealt to linked units is capped at the current HP of the unit receiving damage.
* Units with 1 HP will not take damage from Fatal Bonds
Fiend's Grip (Bane Elemental)
* Attack type Spells, Damage type Mind (magical)
* This is the damage the caster does to himself, not the damage done to the target (which is also, by default, Spells type damage).
Glaives of Wisdom (Silencer)
* Attack type Hero, Damage type Divine (Magical)
Greater Bash (Spirit Breaker)
* Attack type Spells, Damage type Unknown (Universal)
* Although this spell gains very little damage, each point into Greater Bash is effectively about another 0.2 seconds of the target being 'stunned.'
Gravekeeper's Cloak (Necro'lic)
* Attack type Hero, Damage type Magic
* This passive works in that whenever the hero is damaged, no matter what the source and even if he is killed, all units within 400 area of effect with the Gravekeeper's Cloak buff will take the listed amount of damage.
* This passive does not work when over 1400 damage is done to the hero at once. This is to prevent a spell such as Axe's ultimate, which deals a huge amount of damage when its target is under the amount of life listed, from obliterating all nearby units.
* This passive also reduces the damage done to the Visage whether or not any units are around, although, because it works much like the Bristleback's passive, it will not fully reduce an amount that is greater than Visage's missing HP.
Gush (Tidehunter)
* Attack type Spells, Damage type Cold (Magical)
* Yes, Gush's damage is trigger based.
Impetus (Enchantress)
* Attack type Hero, Damage type Divine (Magical)
* This spell's damage, as of 6.34, is determined by the positions of the caster and the target when the projectile hits, not when it's cast.
Kraken Shell (Tidehunter)
* All negative buffs are cleared from the hero every 10 game-time seconds after Kraken Shell is learned.
Laser (Tinker)
* Attack type Hero, Damage type Magic
* It now does deal precise damage against everything except fortified armour. This makes it the strongest single-target non-ultimate nuke in the game.
Last Will (Necronomicon Warrior)
* Attack type Hero, Damage type Magic
* This is the ability on the Necrominion summon that damages the unit or hero that kills it.
Lvl? Death (Doombringer)
* Attack type Spells, Damage type Normal
* This only applies to the 250 bonus damage done by the spell on the correct levels. The other damage is attack type spells and damage type magic by default, so it will only be affected by spell resistance.
Maledict (Witch Doctor)
* Attack type Spells, Damage type Magic
* Damage is based on the difference between the target's current HP and its HP when Maledict was cast.
Mana Void (Anti-Mage)
* Attack type Spells, Damage type Magic
Meat Hook (Butcher)
* Attack type Spells, Damage type Enhanced (Physical, but does not apply armor)
Nightmare (Bane Elemental)
* There is an extremely small initial 5 damage using attack type Spells and damage type Magic
* The 'damage' on top of that just takes the health directly from the target.
Nether Strike (Spirit Breaker)
* Attack type Spells, Damage type Normal
* This spell has a one second casting delay.
Omnislash (Juggernaut)
* Attack type Hero, Damage type Normal
* This applies to the 3/5/8 "triggered" slashes which deal 150-250 damage. If Yunero's attack speed is fast enough, he may make regular attacks between the slashes.
Paralyzing Cask (Witch Doctor)
* Attack type Spells, Damage type Normal
* This refers to the 75 damage that Paralyzing Cask deals to each non-hero unit that it hits.
Penitence (Holy Knight)
* Attack type Hero, Damage type Normal
* When Penitence is cast, it creates a temporary trigger that fires when its target is damaged. What's interesting about Penitence is that it does increase the damage done by spells, but when it does, the 32% bonus damage is dealt as physical damage that gets reduced by armor instead of by the hero's spell resistance. Desolator on Chen? Slardar or Nevermore and Chen a good combo? Maybe..
Purification (Omniknight)
* Attack type Spells, Damage type Normal
* Purification damage is trigger based. However, Purification damage becomes highly ineffective on heroes later on because it's affected by both hero spell resistance and hero armor.
Quill Spray (Bristleback)
* Attack type Hero, Damage type Normal
Reaper's Scythe (Necrolyte)
* Attack type Spells, Damage type Fire (Magical)
Remote Mines (Techies)
* Attack type Spells, Damage type Fire (Magical)
* Damage done by Remote Mines is triggered, and the area of the remote mines increases slightly from 425 to 435 to 450.
Return (Centaur Warchief)
* Attack type Hero, Damage type Normal
* This only applies to the damage done by triggers when the Centaur is attacked, not the initial damage done to melee units. This passive is extremely inneffective against Agility heroes because of their high armor and natural spell resistance.
Reverse Polarity (Magnataur)
* Reverse Polarity is a hard-coded War Stomp that moves all nearby units onto the caster when it resolves.
Rupture (Bloodseeker)
* Attack type Hero, Damage type Magic
* This attack and damage type applies to both the initial damage and the damage taken by moving.
* The distance the target has traveled is checked every quarter of a second.
* If the hero has traveled far enough to deal himself 200 damage, all of that damage is negated (1000/500/333.3~ is the minimum distance to avoid damage).
Sanity's Eclipse (Obsidian Destroyer)
* Attack type Spells, Damage type Magic
Scattershot (Sniper)
* This spell's damage is done by dummy units and not by triggers.
* The dummy units use attack type Piercing, and, by default, damage type Normal.
* Each pellet has 200 area of effect and strikes in a random spot in Scattershot's area of effect.
Shadowraze (Shadow Fiend)
* Attack type Spells, Damage type Death (Magical)
Shadow Wave (Shadow Priest)
* Attack type Hero, Damage type Normal
* This is the damage dealt to all enemy units within 180 AOE of the healed unit.
Shadow Word (Warlock)
* Attack type Hero, Damage type Divine (Magical)
* When cast on allies, Shadow Word also heals for the full stated amount.
Shallow Grave (Shadow Priest)
* Attack type Hero, Damage type Normal
* This is the damage dealt to the killer of a unit with the Shallow Grave buff if the killer is a hero
Spectral Dagger (Spectre)
* Attack type Spells, Damage type Magic
Spirit Bear (Lone Druid)
* Attack type Spells, Damage type Normal
* This is the damage dealt to the owner of the Spirit Bear when it dies. The damage is reduced by both spell resistance and armor, so killing that huge bear isn't really all that rewarding in that aspect.
* However, killing the bear makes his owner lose 1/1.3~/2/4% of his total experience.
Starfall (Priestess of the Moon)
* Attack type Spells, Damage type Magic
Static Field (Lord of Olympia)
* Attack type Spells, Damage type Magic
* Static Field's effects occur before those of whatever spell was cast to trigger it.
Test of Faith (Holy Knight)
* Attack type Hero, Damage type Magic
Toss (Stone Giant)
* Attack type Spells, Damage type Demolitions (Physical, but unaffected by armor)
* Toss picks a random unit within 275 of Tiny to be thrown. It throws it to the point targeted, not the unit. It overshoots seemingly randomly because of the inherent randomness in polled waits (if they worked out perfectly, it'd land exactly on the spot; polled waits are always longer than what they are set for) (I had misread the effects of Tiny the first time I posted about him).
* The thrown unit receives 20/35/50/65% of the stated Toss damage for levels 0/1/2/3 of Grow!. If the thrown unit is an enemy, it also receives the regular Toss damage.
Waveform (Morphling)
* Attack type Spells, Damage type Magic
Wild Axes (Beastmaster)
* Attack type Spells, Damage type Normal
Tweet This
